The Drive
by NinaZ
Summary: Tag to 'Faith'. Agains, Sam's thoughts...while he drives Dean to the hospital after getting electrocuted. Read and review!


Yet another one-shot. Will it ever stop?

Impossible!

Please read and review...or else.

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The Drive

It was eerily quiet in the house, especially if Dean Winchester was hunting in it.

_Too quiet. _Sam thought, troubled. He cautiously put the two little kids down in the backseat of the Impala, and closed the door.

"Stay here, okay?" Sam told them, "My brother and I will get you somewhere safe- right away." He assured them as they nodded, eyes wide with fear.

There was no crashing, no banging, no splicing, not even the strangely re-assuring sound of a gunshot. Just silence, that goddamn dead silence.

"Shit." Sam said to himself, he had always been a sucker for swearing around children.

He sprinted into the house, his right hand going directly into his pocket and drawing out his pistol filled with rock salt. As he kicked down the door (something useful Dean made him practice as a child) he pointed his gun into the dark.

_Strange. No yelling, no screaming, no swearing. _Sam regarded the silence once again.

Sam slowly turned the corner of the dilapidated hallway, tasting some foul odour in his mouth. It was like burning flesh.

_It couldn't…_ Sam decided to dismiss the thought. His brother was way too good of a hunter to let something like that happen to him.

Gun still drawn, pointing into nothing, Sam closed in onto the basement stairs. This was where he last saw Dean.

And there was where he saw him now: lying in a pool of water, unconscious.

_At least he killed that thing. _Sam thought guiltily, for caring more about this stupid monster than his own brother, as he looked at the creature lying on its back.

"Dean!"

No answer. Just Dean's head lolling onto his chest, his taser gun held in his limp hand.

Sam ran across the basement floor, water splashing at his feet, ignoring the monster that caused this to happen.

He shook Dean, he tried to wake him. Nothing happened.

"Dean." Another pathetic attempt, "Hey, hey."

The kids stared curiously at Dean's unconscious self slumped in the passenger seat.

"Hey, Mr." The boy said to Sam.

"Call me Sam." Sam pushed the pedal harder; he needed to get Dean to a hospital. God knows what could happen in those excess minutes it took to get from point A to point B. It was so crucial.

"Can me and Lily go to sleep?" The boy said, beckoning to the girl, whose eyes were already half-shut.

"Yeah, yeah." Sam said absent-mindedly. Who gives a care if these kids decide to take a nap in the backseat? It was dark, close to 11, and way past their bedtime.

Minutes later he heard the soft drone of the little boy's snore. It left him to face his thoughts, unabashed and unadvised.

It took Sam 10 minutes to get to the next stoplight (where the hell were they?) and to get a steady grasp on reality.

They had stepped into the house, a little too eager maybe. Dean had always been the brazen one.

Sam remembered feeling the taser gun rest in his pocket. He preferred a rock salt gun to one hundred thousand volts of electricity for killing something.

If only they had used rock salt. What had been wrong with using rock salt, anyway? The damn thing would get hurt just the same. Except…except Dean had just scored these weapons from a dealer and was willing to use them. A little too willing.

But that was Dean.

Something resembling a mallet, something in thought form, collided into Sam's train of thought.

_You don't know anything. Dean didn't electrocute himself. He's way too good of a hunter to be _that _stupid. _

_But maybe it wasn't stupidity. It was just an accident. _Some other part of him challenged.

Well, for all you know, that thing could have mauled him and Dean killed it in those last few moments.

_Water conducts electricity. Dean definitely used the taser gun to kill the damn thing. It was open and used._

_Oh, shut up._

What would Sam do now? Dean was unconscious or, for all he knew, dead. He had felt a pulse on his brother's neck a few minutes earlier…but it was fading. Sam placed two fingers next to Dean's Adam's apple just to be sure.

2 pulses. A little weaker…but they were obviously there.

Sam kept driving, the headlights glaring off the dirt road. Dust flying on either side of the Impala, making the world outside these four black doors a mystery.

What would happen if Dean died? What would become of Sam? Their father?

John Winchester, for sure, was off somewhere on a road similar to the one Sam was travelling on doing God-knows-what. If Sam called, John probably wouldn't call back. He probably wouldn't even show up for the funeral.

_Funeral? _Sam scolded himself, _What funeral? He's not freakin' dead!_

At least, not yet.

A piece of gravel made a high-pitched sound as it hit the passenger side door. Sam turned to look and only saw his older brother's chest rising and falling in accordance to his breathing.

Sam decided to try again, "Dean? Hey Dean!"

The little girl stirred in the back seat. Sam decided to shut up.

Somewhere in the back of his mind, some memory or other was unlocked of when he and Dean were kids. Dean was in his early teens; Sam might have been 7 or 8…he couldn't quite remember.

Dean had made Sam sit on the kitchen counter. There was a shallow gash on his forehead. Sam felt the blood drip beside his left eye while Dean unwrapped a band-aid.

"Told you not to play with the machete." Dean taunted his brother as he placed the band-aid on the cut. He reached over to get a wet paper towel.

"Dad said he wanted me to practice." Sam pointed out, wringing his hands nervously, watching Dean dab the blood off his face.

"What are _you_ so nervous for?" Dean snapped, "Besides, Dad told you to _practice _with it…not get sweaty palms and cut your forehead."

Sam stuck his tongue out at Dean, "What are _you _so nervous for?" He shot back.

"Dad's gonna kill me." Dean sighed and took a seat beside Sam on the kitchen counter, "When he gets back, I mean. He told me to look after you."

"You did." Sam smiled, "You just went to the bathroom."

"Yeah…but still." Dean sighed deeply and put his arm around his younger brother, "I'm always supposed to take care of you. Bathroom or not."

Now it was Sam's turn to take care of Dean. Dean was always watching him, he'd been the one to pull Sam out of the fire: both in Lawrence and at Stanford, the one to take the bullet for Sam. Right now, he'd definitely taken the bullet for Sam. Dean could have been the one to bring the kids back outside. Sam could have been the one to shoot the taser. As it was now, Sam surely wished that.

Knowing Dean, though, he'd be perfectly fine the way it was.

But, still, Sam wouldn't. In this whole situation, Dean was the one getting hurt. He was also the one who would refuse any help, always the lone hunter.

Sam had never seen the logic in the way Dean got things done: alone. He would think that Dean, the one to always make sure the family was together, would want his family with him when he hunted. As if some block was removed in Sam's head, he finally began to see Dean's perspective.

If he got hurt, at least he was alone. No one would be hurt, or dead, on account of him and he would be glad to know his family was okay: with or without him.

The exact reason Dean had sent Sam out of the house while he battled the creature.

Sam gingerly turned the Impala off the back road. He squinted as he approached the bright lights of the hospital. Automatically, he reached over the seat to feel for Dean's pulse again.

2 beats.

Always there. That was Dean's pulse. That was Dean.

End.


End file.
